Thomas' Tagebuch

Tagebuch 08.01.11

我聽到了一本小說「The Last days of Ptolemy Grey」的介紹，覺得很有趣，來和大家分享一下。

小說內容是說有一個91歲的老人叫Ptolemy，他罹患初期的老人癡呆症，沒有人照顧就獨居在家每天看電視及聽廣播。很不幸地某天他的姪孫被殺。在其他的家人都沒法幫上忙的情況下，Ptolemy決定接受醫生的提議，服用一種實驗性的藥物來回復他的記憶。這種神奇的藥物雖然可以讓他像正常人一樣思考，不過醫師老實地和他說，這種藥服用了三個月之後，一定會死亡。為了查出是誰殺了自己的姪孫，Ptolemy決定接受醫生的建議服藥…。

以下是一段內容的摘錄：

Hilly Brown approached. He was quite large. Much taller than Ptolemy and almost as wide as the door. Can I come in Papa Grey? Do I know you? I'm your great grandnephew, he said again, June's grandson. Too many names were moving around in Ptolemy's mind. Hilly sound familiar and June too had a place behind the door that kept many of his memories alive but mostly unavailable. That's how Ptolemy imagined the disposition of his memories, his thoughts. They were still his, still in the range of his thinking but they were, many and most of them, locked on the other side of a closed door that he'd lost the key for. So his memory became like secrets held away from his own mind. But these secrets were noisy things. They babbled and muttered behind the door. And so if he listened closely, her might catch a snatch of something he once knew well.

June. June was my niece, he said. Yeah, the boy said smiling. Can I come in, Uncle?

作者Walter Mosley會寫這樣的小說，是因為自己的母親就罹患了阿茲海默症，看到罹患這種疾病的病人是如何努力地想要想起忘記的事情，看到自己的母親看電視想要換台卻忘了怎麼用遙控器，並且嘗試用電話按鍵來選台…他將這些病友遇到的無力感做出真實的描述。

我呢…，我本身很喜歡這樣的主題，除了很害怕自己有一天會得到老人癡呆症以外，吃三個月的藥可以恢復記憶，但三個月以後一定會死亡，這種類似童話的設定也很吸引我，好像浮士德和魔鬼達成交易一樣。我是說，如果是你的話，你會怎麼選擇呢？你要當一個身體健康但完全無法自理生活的老人痴呆症患者，這樣過十年嗎？還是你要好好的用自己完整的記憶、好好地過三個月呢？

唉呦，真想讀讀這本書，不知道會不會出中文版呢？

也許我應該試著看看原文小說了嗎？

相關連結

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我在iPad聽到的NPR專訪作者Walter Mosley [頁面連結]

The Last days of Ptolemy Grey 官方網頁 [頁面連結]

Amazon網站上本書的頁面 [頁面連結]